At the beginning of December, Google announced that it'd be pulling the YouTube app from Amazon's Fire TV products. Amazon made a couple piece offerings by reselling Chromecasts and pushing a Prime Video app to Android TV, but even so, it looks like Google is sticking with its decision.
Google will officially remove YouTube access from Fire TV on January 1, 2018, and some users are now seeing a warning message about this when opening the app that reads "Starting on 1/1/2018, YouTube will not be available on this device. You can continue to enjoy your favorite creators and videos in many other ways. Please visit https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7582560 for a list of devices you can use."
However, for others, the YouTube app has already stopped working. Along with the warning message that allows you to keep using YouTube until January 1, there's another message that appears and says "Access YouTube and millions of other websites by using a web browser such as Firefox or Silk." Below this, you'll still two options for visiting YouTube.com with either of the two browsers.
YouTube warning message (left) and redirecting users to web browsers (right)
Cord Cutter News reports that you'll only be asked to go to YouTube on a web browser if you have one of them installed, and according to AFTVNews, sideloading another version of the YouTube app will allow you to keep using it with the warning message. This suggests that Amazon is the one pushing people to start using the Fire TV's web browsers right now, but either way, this is still bad news for consumers.
We're crossing our fingers that Amazon and Google will be able to make amends sooner rather than later and get the YouTube app back on Fire TV, but until then, make sure you've got a web browser installed before the beginning of next month.
